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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

~* Presents for the Pilot*~

I am so excited to post these photos- My brother is a pilot, and needed decoration for his home.  So... you guessed it- his Christmas presents were all about decoration!  While working on this, I discovered how much I LOVE doing wood projects!  Its so relaxing to paint the backgrounds, then let the silhouette do the detailed stuff.

Ok- so here it is:  His big picture is a 2 foot X 2 foot piece on birch wood.  The second part is a tile- and I can honestly say these two projects are tied for my favorite projects EVER.

Hope you enjoy!

Yeah! The finished product!!


I started out by painting the background and letting it dry approximately 2 hours


I then placed the shadow layer of vinyl down first, followed by the dark brown accent piece.  I started from the bottom so I would make sure and have plenty of room for both the airplane and the text.

I just LOVE THIS TILE!


This aviator is ready to hit the skies!


Well, hope you've enjoyed these pictures!  I will be posting more Christmas craft and gift photos over the next week.

Happy New Year!

*~Leah~*

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

~*Sugar Cookie Instructions*~

Ok- several people have asked for my sugar cookie recipe.  I got it from the BrownEyedBaker's blog.  But here it is for you:

All Occasion Sugar Cookies
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
10 tablespoons butter room temp
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1.) Whisk flour, salt, and baking powder together
2.) W/stand mixer- beat butter @ med speed for ~1 min until smooth
3.) Beat in sugar and continue to beat for 2 min (mix will be light pale)
4.) Ad egg & yolk and beat for 1-2 min (add vanilla)
5.) decrease speed to low and add floud mixture steadil until all is added (don't over do this)
6.) Divide into half and wrap in plastic to chill for 2 hours
7.) Bake on center rack at 350 degrees for 9-11 min


Royal Icing

4 cups powdered Sugar
2 tablespoons meringue powder
6 tablespoons water

1.) Mix all ingredients for 7-10 min on low speed
2.) Color icing (keep covered with damp paper towel!)
3.) Outline cookies
4.) Flood cookies (add a few drops of water until almost liquid consistency)
5.) Let cookies "rest" and dry for at least 2 hours between layers

ENJOY!  Here are a few pictures of the process:




Happy Decorating!!

***Christmas Cookies!!!***

Hello!!  Oh how my kitchen has been tortured over the last week!  But what better way to break in a kitchen than 5 batches of sugar cookies, right?  The snowflakes were made for our family Christmas gathering.  The snowmen were a super cute idea of my friend Cheryl.  We decorated them at her house and they have officially won my heart as the cutest Christmas cookies! 

Since there are so many pictures, I will just post pictures of the cookies here, then do another post on the how-tos!  Hope this helps in your Christmas preparations!

Merry Christmas!  May the Joy & Peace of Christ be with you all!!

~Leah~
These are SOO fun to make and absolutely DELICIOUS!





The best part of all the snowman baking was I used Cheryl's super cute cupcake apron!!!  hehe...

Monday, December 6, 2010

~* Happy Happy Holidays!*~

I hope you are enjoying decorating and baking for the holidays as much as I am.  I LOVE Christmas time.  My favorite was always decorating the tree with mom... you've already seen my tree- and I hear hers is going well!!

Well, I have a fun alternative to the usual bow to top your gifts.  This one was made for a birthday gift, so it is not in Christmas colors- but, you could do the same thing out of your wrapping paper and make it super cute!

This was cut with my Silhouette using the fancy flower design.  I curled the edges around a pencil to make them take form.  It would be great to accent using inks around the edges. You just poke a hole with a stylus or whatever you use, then layer from bottom to top and *poof* a cute flower!


I hope this gives you a great and cheap way to "spice up" your Christmas gifts and tags!!


Till next time!
Leah

Friday, December 3, 2010

~* Merry Christmas Tins!*~

Need an idea for a quick, cute, cheap gift?  Why not a Christmas tin??  You can buy the unused tin a Michaels or Hobby Lobby and decorate to suit your purpose.  I love keeping Christmas cards and pictures in mine- then you have them at the end of the season to make a nice scrapbook page!! 

I hope you are enjoying the holidays!  I can't wait to make more Christmas gifts!!


*Leah*